The problem really is that rape, by some biológical reason, prometes pregnancy. An additional problem is that of undesired pregnancies. For instance, last year fertility and sexual behavior study sponsored by the parenthood foundation in Colombia states that about half pregnancies were reportes as unplanned and undesired.

I braced myself. Unfortunately, one can never fully brace themselves for this kind of stupidity. Mr. Akin and co. seem to have no knowledge of a.) science and b.) sympathy for women who find themselves in such a horrifying situation. Thank you, Economist, for refuting this ludicrous idea.

He extends his stupidity and misogyny to miscarriage. Check out Peter Cornswalled's claim that miscarriages aren't natural in the comments on this blog.

Here is a representative sample:

"God does not make mistakes and he does not permit a child to begin life in a mother whose body cannot support it. If you become pregnant through natural means then God wants you to have that baby and God knows your body can handle it. The “medical necessity” exemption in many abortion laws is a joke, a cruel loophole to allow baby killers to murder children with impunity."

Romney seems to be in a real bind now, especially if someone asks him: "Do you support the GOP platform, specifically the plank against abortion under any circumstances?"

His only possible answers are:
1. I support everything in the party platform. Loses independents
and moderate republicans.
2. No I don't support the GOP platform, especially that plank.
Loses many republicans and most independents.
3. Yes, but not some planks. [More of the flip-flop people expect of this weenie] loses support of all respectable people.
4. On advice of council I take the 5th Amendment. [see #3]

The GOP says they want to talk jobs, but then interject odious thoughts on "Lady Parts" at the most inopportune times. They went from having a pretty sure bet of gaining a Senate seat in Missouri, to it looking like ClaireMcC will hold onto her seat.

Further, GOP's Abortion platform is about "no exceptions". See, for example, Paul Ryan's POV. Did Akin's detractors complain that what he said was wrong and not in sync with the GOP? Nope. They turned on him due to politics.

And, as many have said before, this idiot is on the House Science, Technology and Space committee using bunk science to support his assertion.

The GOP used to have intellectuals. Now,they covet the anti-intellectuals.

I would like to add to this that in the unlikely event that a woman DID achieve orgasm against her will through rape, that still does not negate the fact that it was AGAINST HER WILL, and therefore rape. I don't know how on earth orgasm = consent.

I somehow doubt that Messrs Akin, Cornswalled et al took the trouble to have a little heart-to-heart talk with the tens of thousands of children born of the vindictive mass-rape of German women by Russian soldiers during the advance of the Red Army into Germany in early 1945; or indeed even do a little research on the subject. That would have been too much like work.

According to British historian Frederick Taylor, who wrote a detailed history of the Berlin Wall and the political and social circumstances surrounding it, estimates of such "Russian babies" born of raped German women (whose origins were obviously kept taboo under the East German regime) ranged between 150,000 and 200,000 -- not counting the approximately two million abortions undergone by these unfortunate and desperate women who clearly did not regard their offspring as "gifts of God"; and were indeed prepared to get rid of them even at a time when the abortion process often meant little more than a squalid back alley and a filthy knitting needle.

So much about any woman's "moment of issue" preventing conception during such horrific events.

I would have thought this particularly gruesome case study alone would have been enough to settle this ridiculous proposition by yet another swivel-eyed representative of the increasingly unhinged American right. And yet...

Excellent example westerexpat, alas, Messrs Akin, Cornswalled and their ilk have a catch-all answer to such obvious truths: "all those German women secretly enjoyed it".
These people are truly repugnant.

"Regardless of how the encounter began, by achieving a moment of issue the woman has consented to all that went before." This is the most hateful thing I've ever read. So if the rapist forces the woman to have an orgasm that's all that counts? The woman's consent, the woman's free will, the woman's choice - apparently counts for nothing? This is a most barbaric view of women! Aren't women fully human too, endowed with reason and free will? So just because she can be physically overpowered all of that doesn't count anymore? One word for these republicans - CRAZY!

Why is Dr. Willke's theory dismissed out of hand? He has plenty of supporting evidence, including several studies. But these are ignored in favor of one study that found the opposite. The problem with all of these studies, though, is the bias in reporting. As even the government agencies that collect that statistics admit, false accusations of rape are quite common, and many real instances of rape go unreported. And it would seem quite likely that rape resulting in pregnancy would be put more pressure on the victim to file a report, and false accusations of rape would likely occur more often when there is a pregnancy to explain. Thus we could reasonably expect that the statistics would be skewed.

However, despite this bias, several studies have found pregnancy from rape to be significantly less likely than from regular consensual intercourse. And the theory that the psychological and/or physical trauma experienced by rape victims makes pregnancy less likely is at the very least plausible, if not provable. So to dismiss it out of hand as "crackpot" is rather disingenuous, especially considering that the author then tries to link it to some random post someone found on a message board once, when Dr. Willke says nothing of "up suck" or mucus plugs.

2) He does not have evidence that the vagina spasms and stops the passage of all the millions of sperm. Or any of them. Or that it spasms.

3) Link to these oft-touted but apparently impossible-to-find peer-reviewed scientific studies in human women. So far these seem to represent a thing someone sort of thought he read once, and it made sense, sort of like the tooth fairy makes sense. I was occasionally told not to raise my arms over my head while pregnant, because this thing people had heard, but my arms are not, in fact, connected to the umbilical cord.

I have a suggestion: All children conceived through rape and brought to term by operation of law are automatically beneficiaries of a trust which is funded by a 100% inheritance tax levied on all registered Republicans. Certainly, those willing to use the coercive powers of the state to impose their views on others will be willing to pay for the operation of those views; anything less would be hypocrisy.

"Certainly, those willing to use the coercive powers of the state to impose their views on others will be willing to pay for the operation of those views; anything less would be hypocrisy."

Pot says what to the kettle? By that logic we can then conclude that only registered democrats will be forced through the powers of the state by levy of "tax" to purchase health care? Only businesses run by registered democrats are forced to purchase birth control for their employees against their religious beliefs. Those on long term government assistance will be receiving their checks courtesy of registered democrats as well? It occurs to me that the republicans are not the only ones willing to use the power of the state to force their views on others....

"Certainly, those willing to use the coercive powers of the state to impose their views on others will be willing to pay for the operation of those views; anything less would be hypocrisy."

Pot says what to the kettle? By that logic we can then conclude that only registered democrats will be forced through the powers of the state by levy of "tax" to purchase health care? Only businesses run by registered democrats are forced to purchase birth control for their employees against their religious beliefs. Those on long term government assistance will be receiving their checks courtesy of registered democrats as well? It occurs to me that the republicans are not the only ones willing to use the power of the state to force their views on others....

"Certainly, those willing to use the coercive powers of the state to impose their views on others will be willing to pay for the operation of those views; anything less would be hypocrisy."

Pot says what to the kettle? By that logic we can then conclude that only registered democrats will be forced through the powers of the state by levy of "tax" to purchase health care? Only businesses run by registered democrats are forced to purchase birth control for their employees against their religious beliefs. Those on long term government assistance will be receiving their checks courtesy of registered democrats as well? It occurs to me that the republicans are not the only ones willing to use the power of the state to force their views on others....

This idea of needing to orgasm in order to conceive actually started in medeival times when the female anatomy was viewed as an opposite inverse of the male anatomy, and that her ovaries (the female testes counterpart) released their own semen - and both fluids were needed for conception. This woman needing to have an orgasm to conceive is truly and literally medeival - I know politicians can oft quote crackpot science - but crackpot science from the dark ages? Just when you think you have seen it al . . .

And then during the Puritan times, women were not allowed to have an orgasm, because sex was seen as sinful to enjoy, and only for the purpose of birthing children. If a woman cried out in pleasure, she was put to death.

I do find it interesting that "the moment of issue" would make it a consensual act. I know some people who think that arousal of the man (and thus an erection) negates the possibility of raping a man. Even without orgasm, some people feel that the presence of an erection means the man consented to sex.
Anyway, I think both are silly. It's quite possible that my body and my mind do not necessarily agree with each other. There's all manner of involuntary bodily reactions: including that fart I had a few minutes ago when I coughed while talking to my boss. I sure as hell didn't want to do that -- or did I???

Yeah, Ryan, the study's conclusions make no sense to me. It depends on the assumption that the unfortunate women had no other (consensual) sex that year. Defies logic.

BTW, this is really shoddy study design. Given that it's a cheap-ass retrospective study, the only reason not to include matched controls is if the National Violence Against Women dataset contains no further information about the subjects. Should have used a better dataset, or not published at all....

OK, so I went and read the pertinent sections of the actual paper. It is implied, though not explicitly confirmed, that the 26 pregnancies were attributed to the rapists by the mothers themselves. The authors include a section in which they discuss the possibility error due to the mothers' misattribution of pregnancy to rapists rather than consensual partners.

I guess it's the WaPo's fault for misreporting the study. "Experienced a pregnancy that year" is lightyears away from "attributed a pregnancy to the rapist."

Another possible explanation for a higher incidence of pregnancy from rape victims might be that many rapes go unreported, whereas a rape that results in pregnancy is more likely to be reported since it is difficult to hide a woman's pregnant state from friends and family. Until society can break the sickening taboo around being a victim of rape I would argue that this is a more likely reason.

Those incidences go unreported in part because the victims of rape cannot hide their identity when they reveal that they've been raped. If I were a woman, and a rape victim, perhaps I would not feel any stigma personally if no one knew that I had been raped, even though I had been raped.
But I would assume that the survey from which the data were taken was an anonymous survey. Therefore, there might have been rape victims who had been polled by the survey who failed to say, on the survey, that they had been raped, even though there does not seem to be any detriment to them for doing so.
Of course, I might be missing something else, something very important: women polled by the survey who had been raped might not have been able to admit to themselves (and hence respond in the affirmative) that they had been raped. They might have, unfortunately, been unable to overcome the psychological difficulty of making that personal admission. Still it's not a case of rapes going "unreported," per se, since those women in the survey still remain anonymous.

It is possible that macho, he-man fundamentalists are trying to make marital rape disappear. Perhaps he really dosen't like the idea of going to the trouble of subduing a resisting chattel sex slave [i.e. wife] and then have her vengefully abort his child.

Why not attribute it to the entire GOP? Their platform includes amending the Constitution to outlaw abortion even in the case of rape. You don't want that paint from the broad brush, you say? Well then, change what colors you and your associates pull from the pallet.

Don't attribute it to the GOP because such pseudoscience is much different than a particular position on abortion.
I've been meaning to look that up, and haven't had a chance. I've not read the platform in the past, and I'm not sure how it relates to policies that elected officials later pursue. Regardless of beliefs, it seems a terrible idea, strategically, to pronounce positions more extreme than are likely to be accomplished in the next administration. Take comfort in that such an amendment will almost certainly remain out of the power of the GOP To accomplish.

As far as the higher incidence of "per-incident rape-pregnancy", I wonder if that could be attributable to unreported rapes. Basically, a rape that results in pregnancy is somewhat more likely to be reported than a rape that does not result in pregnancy. While the rape apologists like Cornswalled might imagine a society with an over-reporting of rape, might not this be some evidence that we have an under-reporting of rape?

I believe according to the FBI rapes are considered to be very under-reported. Which would be expected, between the problems of a he-said/she-said case, fear of slut-shaming, etc. (Quick google: yes, estimate is they are reported less than half the time.) People look on rape victims rather differently from those who had a purse or wallet snatched.

(And yes, people lie about rape. At about the same rate as any other crime, according to the FBI, something in the high single digits as I recall. Google: 8%. So for some ballpark math, if 100 rapes are reported 8 are unfounded and something like 200 unreported.)

Ok I know that I am going to regret this but...how exactly did you get that I am against Obama care (I am by the way) from my statement that the patient, doctor and possibly family should make the decisions on abortion in cases of rape?

Question two is...how do you make the leap that if I am against obamacare (I am) that I in any way support child abuse (I wholeheartedly do not)???

Coincidentally, I just read Dr. Wilke's article. He cites statistics from the justice department, an article from the New England Journal of Medicine, and a couple of books published in the US. No Nazis.

I've heard that the "moment of issue" can help a woman get pregnant, and as a lay person who has the organs in question, I would say that makes some sense. But I've never heard that you *can't* get pregnant without it. That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. The person who came up with that theory was/is obviously a man who didn't know his wife was faking it.

Has anyone had recent doctor consults for infertility? Because when I did for secondary infertility about 10 years back, "make sure you have a moment of issue (after there are sperm around)" was not part of the advice. I would think if there was any statistical evidence this made things more likely, rather than a random 'how does climax work? well I guess it does X' guess, this would top the list of advice for those trying to conceive.

As a "lay person", even if you have the organs, don't you think one of the congressmen sitting on the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology probably knows more about this subject and what's best for you?

Yeah, I keep forgetting that crusty old religious male religious politicians are the experts when it comes to the female body. I should put that on a post-it note or something so I remember the next time.

Due to a quirk of human evolution, even though it's not Politically Correct to acknowledge this fact, apparently it's relatively common (estimated in at least 20% of cases) for a woman to involuntarily have an orgasm during rape, which would make pregnancy MORE likely to occur from rape than from consensual sex if the "upsuck theory" of female orgasm contributing to pregnancy is scientifically valid.

But the upsuck theory has absolutely no evidence supporting it. Which is why it is called a "theory," along with many other evolutionary "Why do we have an X? Well how about to do Y?" theories that haven't held up to any testing.

And your math only works if orgasm happens in less than your estimated 20% of consensual sex acts.

I think it would be more appropriate to refer to the upsuck as a phenomenon. I'm a stickler, but in science, a theory is more or less a set of laws and axioms that have been proven by rigorous testing of hypotheses to observe various phenomena to derive causality. Assuming upsuck occurs, it could have implications for theories involving human reproduction if it is subjected to various tests and vetted by scientific peers to determine its fit, if any. Perhaps with his role of the committee, Rep Akin could allot funds and grants for such studies, hopefully by secular scientists.

A hypothesis in correct scientific terminology, a theory in popular usage of the word. (As in "A species of ducks have spiral vaginas. I theorize this is to prevent insemination after rape" which is supposed to be a starting point, not an ending point. Coming up with four other possible uses for the structure/phenomenon in question would be nice. And then testing whether it actually does what you think. In questions of pregnancy, certainly it can happen in women who have never had a climax.)